Do Australian anti-discrimination laws need reformatting or reform? This article compares Australia’s laws with their equivalent in the United Kingdom and Canada to show that our laws have simply not matured in the way their counterparts have. The regulatory trend discernible in these jurisdictions is clearly a move away from an individual fault-based model like Australia’s toward one that casts a wider net, requiring duty-holders not to merely refrain from wrong-doing but to make at least reasonable efforts to promote equality.

Community legal centres have a justifiable sense that they were once a radical alternative to conventional lawyering, but that role is no more, and CLCs are now reformers within established legal structures. In this sense they are finished. The radical political theory of Thomas Mathiesen both explains what has happened to CLCs independence, and shows how things could be different in future if CLCs were to avoid making the choices that the state demands of them.

Research supports the integration of legal services with health and welfare services. A recent project looked at work and practices of the West Heidelberg Community Legal Service which has been co-located with Banyule Community Health for thirty years.

The future of CLCs hinges on how internal and external forces impact the things which matter most — the comparative strengths of CLCs. These strengths will be fully leveraged by CLCs only if they operate as highly effective and capable organizations, characterised by discipline. This imperative applies equally to existing CLCs and new initiatives that aspire to have real impact beyond service delivery and which animate a genuine justice dialogue.

Community legal centres are an accepted part of the Australian legal landscape, but this was not always the case. Early CLCs represented a marked shift away from established conceptions of the law, legal practice and legal practitioners. This article traces the factors underlying CLCs' achievements in challenging traditional conceptions and surviving in the long term. While acknowledging the importance of CLC workers' and volunteers' skills and tenacity, it argues that the social and political climate in which they originated was pivotal to CLCs' longevity.

The infringement notice system is used extensively in Australia to address the effect of minor law breaking. However, the current expanding and increasingly punitive infringement system may perpetuate and entrench disadvantage for marginalised members of the community. It also stretches the resources of community legal centres responding to the impact on these disadvantaged people. This article presents an historical overview of infringement systems in Australia, explores the arguably unjust impact on disadvantaged groups and raises questions regarding the appropriateness of the current blurring of civil and criminal responses to minor offences.

Recent moves by Parliament to increase penalties for the use of 'obscene' language raise questions about the extent to which individuals have freedom of expression rights in Australia. I argue here that such laws might be challenged on the basis of the implied freedom of political communication developed by the Australian Courts. I look to the experience in other countries such as the United States where courts have upheld an individual's freedom of expression over attempts to regulate what a person can say, and the extent to which freedom of expression is protected in international instruments.

As a break from CLC work in suburban Melbourne, the author volunteered her time and expertise to a not for profit organisation committed to providing south east Asian law students with skills training, helping instill in them professional values of public responsibility and social justice.

This list is a selection of local journal articles and books about community legal centres, prepared when researching the article 'Are CLCs Finished?' in this issue. Fittingly, most are from the Alternative Law Journal which began life as the Legal Service Bulletin, the Fitzroy Legal Service newsletter.

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]]>106Thu, 22 Mar 2012 20:19:30 +1100Learnings from community legal education: A year long project for new arrivalshttp://www.altlj.org/index.php?option=com_hikashop&ctrl=product&task=show&cid=735&name=learnings-from-community-legal-education-a-year-long-project-for-new-arrivals&Itemid=790&category_pathway=106
http://www.altlj.org/index.php?option=com_hikashop&ctrl=product&task=show&cid=735&name=learnings-from-community-legal-education-a-year-long-project-for-new-arrivals&Itemid=790&category_pathway=106

The Community Legal Education program at Victoria Legal Aid undertook a community engagement project with newly arrived communities in the Shepparton region. Sessions addressed gaps in the delivery of legal services, and identified opportunities to collaborate with local agencies already working with refugee communities.